Beaded Wine Glass Charms

With a few beads, some memory wire and glue, you can make these simple beaded wine glass charms.  I made a lot of these for the wedding and got a lot of complements on them.

What you need:
- Memory Wire
- Seed beads (really small ones for ends)
- other beads for decorations (optional)
- bead glue (I use G S Hypo Cement)
- wire cutters (be warned that the memory wire does damage cutters, so maybe buy some cheap ones that you would use only for this application... at least, that's what I did).

Before you start, you should have a design in mind.  Remember that wine charms should be different from each other so people can use them to know which wine glass is theirs.

Okay so here's what you do:

1.  Cut the memory wire so that you almost complete a circle, minus a quarter inch or so.

2.  Put a small amount of glue to the end of one wire and put a seed bead. Do this to only one end of the wire. The glue should hold the seed bead in place at the end.  Lay the wire and seed bead down to let the glue set (ten or so minutes, I think.  Just check if it appears set.  Full drying time is more like an hour).  In the mean time, you can glue down more seed beads to memory wires.

3.  Once dry, you can put the other beads on as the design you would like.  I like making a big bead the focal point, and the small beads for added color variation.

4.  Time to close it up.  While holding the beads away from the open side of the wire, apply a small amount of glue to the open end of wire and put a seed bead.  Again, put it aside, and let the glue dry (about an hour for full dryness).

5.  Once the glue dries, you have your wine glass charm.  You should now be able to attach it to the stem of a wine glass.

(optional:  you can go back and add a drop of glue at both ends of the wire to give it a little more strength)

Tears of Joy Packets

People cry at weddings.  It's just a fact.  For this reason, for our wedding I created these small packets called Tears of Joy.  It's a super simple packet that adds a personal touch to the wedding with very low cost.

Here's what you need:

- Clear Plastic Treat bags (6" x 4.5")

- Travel size tissue packs

- Sticker or printed label (with double sticky tape -- I used repositionable double sticky scrap booking tape, but regular double sticky should work fine).

Here's how to assemble the packets:

1.  Fill each treat bag with 2 tissues from the travel pack.

2.  Fold down the top end twice so the fold makes it somewhere in the middle of the tissue.

3.  Use a sticker or double sticky tape with label to seal it closed.

So, really that's all there is to it.

For the labels, I printed them on cardstock.  You can also use those Avery sticker labels that can be printed on, or maybe those Hershey Kiss stickers that you can print on.

Washcloth Rose Favors

We used these for our wedding favors.  When I went looking for ideas for favors I wanted something that was gonna be useful to my guests and eye catching.  I saw roses created with a baby spoon and a baby washcloth, and decided to expand on that idea. These are using regular washcloths, a small drinking glass, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Materials:
The glasses I used are from Ikea (love that place).  (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80094014/)
2 washcloths (one the color of the rose, and one green for leaves)
a dowel (painted green)
hand sanitizer (small ones from Bath and Body Works)

For tags:
Iron-on adhesive,
cardstock (with leave shapes and thanks printed on)
green fabric (for leaves)

1. Fold the colored washcloth diagonally twice.
2. Lay the end of the dowel as shown in the picture, and slowly roll the washcloth around.
3. When you have a couple of inches left, start folding it down while continuing to roll.

4. On the long side of the washcloth, fold up.
5.  Follow the fold and wrap the folded part around the rose (as you would if you were rolling up a sock).
6.  Position and fix so it looks like a rose.

7.  To make the tags, take your printed cardstock (with leaves), and use iron-on adhesive to iron on fabric on the back side.
8.  Cut the leaves out.
9.  Use a hole puncher to punch a hole.
10.  Slip the leaf onto the dowel.  You can put a slight bend on the leaf to help it to hold on the dowel, and for looks because leaves have that natural bend anyway.

Final assembly.
11. Attach the hand sanitizer to the dowel.  Tape seems to work pretty well for us.
12. Lay out a green washcloth, and fold the top and bottom corner in.
13. Stand the hand sanitizer and dowel above the center of the washcloth.
14.  Bring up the sides, hold it and flip the whole thing upside down.  This allows you to fix the green washcloth so it fits nicely into the glass. Slip the glass on top.
15. Flip back right-side down.  Fix the green washcloths so they look like two nice big leaves or a bed of greenery for the the rose.

And that's it. We got a lot of compliments on these favors.